IT WAS A PLEASANT AFTERNOON - Part 1

Jack emerged back into the Hub's main work area from the stairs to the lower levels with Ianto at his heels. They would have heard him coming before they saw him. He was ranting angrily at Ianto over his shoulder. "... which is also completely unprofessional, by the way. I mean, who the hell does he think he is, anyway?"

"The Prime Minister?" Ianto ventured evenly.

Jack spun around to face Ianto momentarily. "We don't report to him," Jack said testily. "Sometimes I let him know what's going on, as a courtesy, if I feel like it!" He turned and resumed his agitated march towards his office. "He sure as hell isn't coming here, to my base, to look down his nose at my operation and to try and steal my staff!" he said angrily.

"Jack..." Ianto began. Jack spun around and looked at him, his expression still very agitated, his eyebrows raised as if challenging Ianto. Ianto just gazed back at him, his expression inscrutable. "Maybe you should consider it, just for the sake of playing nice," he suggested.

"I don't need to play nice with him," Jack scoffed.

Ianto just raised an eyebrow at him.

Jack held his gaze for a very long moment, a silent battle of wills seeming to take place. "Fine," Jack finally said. "I'll consider it."

Ianto cocked his head very slightly in rebuke.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Fine. Set it up. But not right away. Make him wait."

Ianto nodded and moved over to his station.

When Ianto had moved away and the debate was over, Jack seemed to realize that everyone (well, Gwen and Buffy) were looking at him. He looked over at Buffy. "How's it going with that database?" he asked casually, as though he hadn't just been having a temper tantrum right through the middle of the Hub.

Okay, so, first thing Buffy had to do when she got off work that day: buy popcorn. There were just too many moments for which she was missing prime viewing comfort. She definitely needed popcorn, or at least some Chinese food. Moments of insanity always made her think of Chinese food - she blamed Faith and Dawn for that, and too many boring Cleveland nights hiding from the Minis.

Blinking comically at Jack's casual tone, she gave him a big smile as she recovered from the shift in mood, and gesturing toward the screen in front of her, told him, "I think I know this guy's second cousin! He makes a great vodka martini."

Jack gave her a smile and turned to head up to his office when Ianto called out.

"Jack," he said with a small note of urgency in his voice as he peered at something on his computer screen with a degree of consternation. "We're getting reports of something that witnesses are describing as a sort of Porcupine Man in a supermarket. Apparently this 'person' is wrecking displays, stealing food and assaulting anyone who comes near it. Three members of store security have been injured. They've called police."

Jack nodded and turned to Gwen. "Tell the police that we'll handle it." He looked at Buffy. "You wanted to kick someone in the head. How does Porcupine Guy sound?"

"Like just what the glorified therapist ordered," she answered with a grin, grabbing her coat from the back of the chair. That had been one of her titles for him during their 'incarceration' together in the hotel from hell; while they'd been stuck in the lap of luxury, trying to find a way out and the thing behind their abductions, they'd shared the talking and listening deal and he had done more for her than any therapist could ever hope to accomplish. Jack had understood things that few others had ever dreamed of comprehending, and even fewer had ever bothered to try. That was the main reason she had taken him up on his offer of a job with Torchwood - being around Jack made her feel better about the part of her life where she was just Buffy and not the Slayer first and foremost.

Ianto looked at Jack with a modicum of concern as he grabbed the captain's coat. "She doesn't have a gun yet," he pointed out. He clearly wasn't sure this was a good idea when he hadn't even finished processing her.

"She doesn't need a gun," Jack announced as Ianto helped him into the coat. "She'll have one, when you get around to it," he added. "Just in case. But she doesn't need one."

Ianto frowned and looked over at Gwen.

Gwen was clearly sharing Ianto's trepidation over Jack's apparent loss of what sanity he'd ever possessed. Hastily struggling into the sleeves of her own dark coat, she voiced those concerns. "Jack, are you sure about this?" she asked in the voice she used when trying to talk some sense into her boss. "She clearly hasn't had experience with these sorts of things-"

"What part of the Vampire Slayer memo didn't you get?" Buffy interrupted, giving the dark haired woman a look that said she was on an entirely different planet than Joking Land right now. "This is just another day at the office for me, and," she turned her gaze on Ianto this time, "Jack's right, I don't need a gun." Pulling up the zipper on her leather coat, she started for the door. "Now can we get on with catching Quilly already?" she called back to them impatiently.

"Right, then," Ianto muttered as he pulled his own overcoat on. Rather than following Jack, Buffy and Gwen up to the Plass, he took the passageway that lead to the underground carpark and retrieved the SUV, pulling up in front of the watertower to pick the others up.

Jack got into the passenger seat, leaving Gwen and Buffy to get into the back. The inside of the SUV was as hightech as any workstation in the Hub and Jack glanced back at Gwen. "Keep an eye on the reports, make sure it hasn't moved." He didn't want to show up at the supermarket, coat billowing and Vampire Slayer at the ready, only to find that it was down the street mauling a kebab stand.

Watching the others in action as they sped through the streets of Cardiff, Buffy had to admit they had a pretty good setup going for them. Gwen's hands flew across the computer bits strategically placed through the back of the vehicle, and though they were clearly going beyond the concept of any speed limits, no one tried to stop them. It made her think back to her days on the streets of Sunnydale, having to work around incompetent officials and police who had never been good for anything, even crowd control. Life for the Scoobies might have been much easier if they'd had this sort of autonomy and not been charged with keeping secrets that couldn't be kept forever. But things had changed now, and the New Council was rising in the ranks as a sort of freelance consultation firm, recruiting young men and women from across the world to join their organization. Of course, they were still doing the average vamp slay and demon killing, but the big picture was a part of their world as well now.

"Andy must not be on today; police have arrived and are trying to subdue it," Gwen informed Jack with an irritated tone. She may have been a former PC, but she'd learned to be very annoyed when the locals tried taking Torchwood matters into their own hands. It only managed to get people hurt or dead, and she'd much rather not have either.

Jack turned in his seat to look at Gwen. He was already agitated from his conversation with the Prime Minister and he so didn't need this bullshit. "Get them on the god-damned radio and tell them to disengage before somebody gets killed," Jack told her angrily. "Tell them if they want to do something, they can make sure the store is evacuated and keep the crowds well back. Tell them we are on our way and if they're still engaging the creature when we get there, their immediate future in law enforcement is going to make them dream of a promotion to traffic warden!"

Ianto glanced over at him as he turned to face front again. "ETA," Jack said irritably.

"Three minutes," Ianto answered, gunning it through a red light.

Well, Buffy was glad to see she wasn't the only one to be annoyed by local interference. While Gwen conveyed Jack's message to whoever was in charge of the Stupid Squad, she leaned forward to ask a very unhappy looking Captain Jack, "So how is this gonna work exactly? I've done the team thing before and kinda messed it up, so a little direction beforehand would be nice so I don't squish any toes." In other words, if he wanted her to do anything in particular, it was probably a good idea to tell her now before she went with her own unorthodox ideas.

Jack turned in his seat again. "We'll try and pen it in," he said making a sort of waving gesture between himself, Ianto and Gwen. "You just do what you do. If you can subdue it enough that we can take it alive, that's preferable, but if you're in danger, then slay away," he told her. "I'll be your backup if there's a threat of it overpowering you at all. Ianto and Gwen will keep it from exiting if it tries to escape." He flashed her a smile. "Is that specific enough?" he asked. "I like to leave a little room for creative freedom."

Gwen glanced over at them with worry, concern, and a tiny bit of fear, but wisely didn't say anything. Having Jack around always made things a lot more interesting, but she was almost afraid he was bordering insanity this time.

Buffy just answered his smile with one of her own. "Oh yeah, nice and roomy is totally of the good," she agreed. She was about to say something about him being pretty good backup, complete with friendly innuendo, when she saw a man go flying out a window up the street in a shower of glass. "I guess we're here," she muttered with raised eyebrows.

Ianto pulled the SUV up right in the middle of the police cars already parked outside. They got out, Ianto stopping briefly to check on the officer that was on the ground. Cuts and bruises, but - luckily for the officer - he wasn't badly hurt.

They all stepped past him. Ianto drew his gun as they walked and glanced at Jack, who nodded for him to veer off to the left as they entered. Jack then nodded for Gwen to go right. Jack and Buffy were going right up the centre, heading for where he could see the creature in the mirrors at the corners of the shop. He could also see Gwen and Ianto circling around either side. The creature was feeding on frozen meat from a wall unit at the back of the store.

Buffy could hear the police grumbling from outside the store, reluctantly leaving the fight to tend to their wounded prides. There were more than a few mutterings of Bloody Torchwood. It sort of made her feel like she was part of the actual Scooby-Doo team. Weird sensation.

As soon as she was in the creature's sight, she called out, "Hey! You gonna pay for that?" The creature, which really did look like it was half porcupine, turned with what sounded like a stuffed up snarl and lunged at her. She waited until it was within reach, then grabbed it, using its own momentum to toss it into a nearby shelf. She watched it warily for a moment where it was half-buried under boxes of food, then turned her head to glance back at Jack. "Was it seriously that ea-AGH!" she cried out in surprise as her legs were pulled out from under her and her back hit the floor hard.

Nope, not so easy.

She suddenly missed the old days of fighting fledgies. At least she usually got some good banter out of it. She didn't think aliens would do Buffy-banter. And now she was just annoyed.

Jack was about to say something in warning as Buffy turned away from the creature, but within a second, she was already on the ground. He stepped forward to help her, but saw the newly determined set of her jaw and stopped where he was. He could see Gwen and Ianto approaching from the sides in concern and held up his hands to keep them back. Buffy still had this one.

Her hands going up above her shoulders, she flung herself up from the floor, easily landing on both feet and turning into a kick to the creature's chest that sent it sprawling against a thick glass door. "Okay, I get that you're having a bad day, but that is not a good excuse for destroying property," she informed it, which only earned her another snarl.

The fight continued with a few punches and a swipe of prickly clawed hands, and Buffy realize that the creature may have had strength, but it was sloppy and lacked any sort of grace. It was just like a fledging except for the banter, she decided, and she'd just have to make do with Jack for the missing part of the equation.

And then suddenly there were sharp teeth sinking into her arm. She'd gotten too close, was too out of practice, and the smell of blood had her grabbing the thing's neck with her other hand and twisting it sharply. It fell to floor in a limp pile, its face smeared with red and she just stood there staring down at it.